Rescue Helicopter and UHW

Royal Legend

Can someone confirm or deny this please.

Seemingly the Coastguard rescue helicopter can no longer land in University Hospital Waterford as the helipad was turned into a Healing Garden.
Now emergencies involving the Coastguard helicopter have to land at Waterpark and an ambulance meets them there to take the patient to hospital.

deisemum

There used to be a helipad near the ambulance station but I think that's long gone.

I know the helicopter lands at Waterpark as it was shown on the programme R117 and when my son played rugby there they players had to clear the pitch when the helicopter needed to land and the ambulance was waiting to meet it.

I don't know about a healing garden though.

Wanderer78

i was aware of the creation of the healing garden but unsure if the helipad was sacrificed. i ll find out though as i know somebody involved in the gardens creation

south

It's still there and still used but the coastguard helicopter is to big to use it and that's why they land on the rugby pitch. The air corps only used the one in the hospital about a week ago

rsz_screenshot_20160507-222543.jpg

space2ground1

It's to do with the size of the coastguard helicopters as mentioned above. They're bigger and far more powerful and so use lots more space to land. As far as I know the Air Corps heli can land in the hospital because it's a smaller aircraft. It's a good problem to have in a sense because the range/speed of the coast guard helis (Sikorsky S92) is massive along with its other rescue capabilities. I'd imagine very little time is lost in a critical situation as the ambulance is there well in advance of them landing on the pitch.

allthedoyles

This is the healing garden - The helipad is at the lower side of it